LONDON, Friday, March 22, 2024 (WAFA) - Selling weapons to Israel that murder more Palestinian civilians is a "war on human rights" and nothing justifies continuing arms sales, according to the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders.
In an op-ed published yesterday by the British daily The Guardian, Mary Lawlor condemned the continued arms sales to Israel in the face of the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 32,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7th last year.
"There exist no moral arguments that can justify the continued sale of weapons to Israel by states that respect the principle of the universality of human rights," said Lawlor.
Saying that Israel has demonstrated over time that it will use such weapons "indiscriminately against Palestinians," Lawlor noted that any claims by Israel of self-defense have long since been "invalidated" by the disproportionality of the response.
She pointed out that the concept of proportionality in conflict is included in Article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, stressing that now there are "ideological arguments" for continued weapons sales, “which I can only conclude place the value of Israeli lives over and above the value of Palestinian ones.”
“This is unconscionable,” Lawlor added, recalling that some Western countries including the US, the UK, Germany, France and Canada all highlighted their support for human rights defenders while continuing to arm Israel.
Lawlor said the human rights defenders, journalists and health care workers that have been killed in the besieged Gaza Strip over the past few months, recalling that this is a "war on women and children,” who account for a reported 72% of the nearly 32,000 Palestinians deaths in Gaza.
On journalist casualties, Lawlor said that more than 122 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel.
“Recently, in remarks celebrating the work of Ukrainian journalists, the US undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs said: ‘[I]t is our commitment to continue to lift up, empower, advocate for, and resource the voices that are showing what is happening on the ground.’”
“Not, it would seem, if those voices are Palestinian,” she said.
Lawlor emphasized that the international human rights architecture is "creaking under the weight of the hypocrisy" of countries who expressed support for a rules-based order but at the same time continue to send weapons to Israel that kill more Palestinian civilians, noting "above all, this is a war on human rights."
Nearly 32,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and nearly 74,200 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities since the outbreak of the Israeli war of genocide on Gaza on October 7.
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